Chapter Four
Becky Works on a Television Documentary About Tobacco Companies Promoting Smoking to Children in Africa

One day, Becky was in one of the cafes near the radio station, when she got involved in a conversation with a television journalist, who said he was working with a group planning a documentary about how smoking is increasing in Africa, and how it's feared that there will be an epidemic of smoking-related health problems there in years to come. He said that as demands for cigarettes had gone down in the developed world, where a lot of people had been put off smoking because of all the publicity about the health problems it causes, tobacco companies had started trying to sell cigarettes in places where the health problems weren't so well-known. But perhaps even worse, they'd started making special efforts to sell them to children. They advertised cigarettes in places where young people were likely to come across them, and they sold single ones or ones in little packs that were even known as kiddie packs, specially so children could afford them. Some children would go without lunch, so they could buy cigarettes instead.

He said it had been found that nearly 100 thousand people become new smokers every day, most in the developing world. And he said one thing they were going to feature in the documentary was how governments in the developing world could be reluctant to regulate cigarette advertising or try to put limits on who can smoke, because the tobacco industry has put pressure on them, even sometimes threatening to take them to court, as well as paying doctors to speak up for tobacco. And when the governments have seen that new cigarette factories have brought jobs to their countries, they have thought that laws restricting smoking or taxes on cigarettes to discourage people buying them might be a bad thing after all.

He said they were planning to interview some children in Africa and their families about how smoking had affected their lives, as well as asking some hard questions of tobacco company bosses, and highlighting the problems smoking was causing for people in general in the developing world.

Becky was shocked. She said she'd like to get involved in the documentary. At first, the journalist didn't think that would be possible; after all, she was still only ten years old. But she suggested that the documentary might have special appeal if one of the reporters who spoke to the children was a child herself. Then she came up with an idea for something she said she'd love to help with:

She'd heard about restorative justice, where victims of crimes would meet the people who committed them and tell them in depth about the effects of the crimes on them. She said she'd seen a documentary about how sometimes it could be really successful; some criminals had given up crime after really thinking about the point of view of one of their crimes' victims, and about how they'd feel if they were a victim of a crime like that themselves. She said she thought it would be great to try the same thing with bosses of tobacco companies, bringing a few African children over to England for a few weeks, who'd ended up suffering because of the way smoking had affected some people in their families, and taking them to see the bosses so they could tell them all about it.

She said she'd like to be the one to interview the bosses with the children, saying that after all, tobacco bosses would find it much more awkward to say nasty things or start shouting angrily or start babbling technical language they hoped would bamboozle the interviewer if they were just being confronted by children. Then she had another idea, and suggested that she and the other documentary makers could find a couple of grandparents from much closer to home with horrible diseases they'd got after years of smoking, or children who had grandparents who'd died of smoking-related problems, leaving them upset, and they could go along too.

The journalist thought they were great ideas, and promised to suggest them to the producer of the programme and the others, telling them Becky had thought of them.

Becky didn't really expect to hear back from them; but the next day, she was contacted by someone working on the programme, who said they loved her ideas, and wanted her to do what she'd suggested.

She went to Africa with the programme makers, and spoke to lots of children who were buying cheap cigarettes, and their brothers and sisters.

One child she spoke to, a girl of about ten called Blessing, said her older brother had become addicted to smoking, after having started at school after some of his friends had started buying cigarettes and told him smoking made them feel good. A year or so after that, their father had had an accident, and become unable to work, and the older brother had had to leave school to help support the family, since there were no disability benefits or sick leave in her country, and it was the only way they could buy enough to eat properly. Their mother couldn't do much paid work as she had to look after their younger brothers and sisters, and because so much of the day was spent doing things that were necessary to keep the family alive, like collecting water from a well a couple of miles away, which she had to walk to, sometimes more than once a day.

But the brother had such a craving for smoking that he spent a lot of the money he got for his wages on cigarettes instead of on the family; his job didn't pay him much money anyway. So they'd often gone without a meal at the end of the day.

When they'd complained to him, he apologised, but said if they took up smoking too, they'd find they didn't get so hungry. He'd found that himself, skipping meals, thinking he'd prefer cigarettes, because they made him feel contented and stopped him feeling so hungry. He became unhappy that the family had to go without things because of his addiction, but he didn't feel as if he could stop smoking, because when he tried, he got bad cravings for cigarettes.

Blessing and one of her sisters had had to give up school and get jobs. Lots of children worked all day to support their families in their country, even quite young ones. Their parents had had to pay for them to go to school in the first place, and they'd only been able to go for a few years, and were still not that good at reading and writing; there had been so many children in their class, they hadn't ever been given much attention. Now they were working for a quarry owner, breaking little rocks into gravel for rich people to use in their gardens and things like that. It was hard dangerous work, that paid very little. But in a country without a welfare state, it kept them from starving. They didn't like their work at all, and didn't expect life to get much better.

When Becky asked Blessing if she'd like to come to England to tell her story to a tobacco boss, telling her her family would get paid much more than she was earning in the quarry for it, she was delighted at the idea, and said she'd love to come. Becky knew Blessing's family would have to be asked first. But they liked the idea too.

Becky spoke to another child, a boy called Solomon who was about Blessing's age, who'd had a talent for playing football, and a local team had told him that if he continued to show promise, one day they might let him play for them, and then if he was really good, who knows, but one day a talent scout from an important team where he'd be paid good wages might just possibly spot him. He joined their junior section, and trained with others of his age there. But he'd started smoking after some school friends had said it made them feel good; and after the government put a tax on cigarettes to try to discourage people from smoking so the price went up, he found it difficult to afford both school meals and cigarettes, so he started regularly skipping lunch to smoke. But then his sporting performance started deteriorating because he didn't have so much energy. He realised it must be because he wasn't eating as much as he should be, but by then, he was addicted to cigarettes, and got severe cravings for them when he tried to give them up.

The local team said they didn't think he'd be able to play for them after all. So they dropped him from the junior section, and his sporting hopes were ruined. He thought his chance of ever having a career he might actually enjoy, that wouldn't be just long hours of hard miserable slog, had faded away.

Becky asked him, too, if he'd like to come to England and speak to some tobacco bosses, and tell them all about what had happened to him, for a programme that would be on television. Both children were amazed at such an opportunity, and said they'd love to come!

Becky asked permission from Solomon's parents. They thought it would be a great opportunity too. The film crew offered an older relative of each child the opportunity to come with them to look after them. A grandparent of each child went with them in the end.

The families were paid more than they'd have been able to earn in several years in the jobs they had, because the wages were so low. The film crew advised them not to let many people know they suddenly had a lot more money, in case they became the victims of thieves, or jealous or desperate neighbours. Then they decided to pay them in instalments over the coming years, so they wouldn't have to keep lots of money where it might be at risk of being stolen. The families were grateful that they would have enough to give their children good schooling, and to be able to eat decent food. Blessing's parents said she and her sister would be able to give up their dangerous work crushing rocks, and go to the best school in the area, along with their other children. And they'd all be able to have much better food.

Becky remembered what she'd told some teachers at her school years earlier about things that might help them give up smoking, and she gave advice to Solomon and Blessing's older brother, and some other children who smoked. They said they'd have a go at giving smoking up.

The two children, Blessing and Solomon, and their grandparents, enjoyed their trip to England, and being with the film crew.

Before their trip to Africa, Becky and the film crew had made enquiries around hospitals and other places where they were likely to find a lot of unwell older people, and they found an old woman willing to come and speak to the tobacco bosses with them, called Emily. They called her Granny Emily. She'd started smoking about fifty years earlier, when not much was known about the health risks of smoking, and when adverts had given the impression that it was cool for women to smoke. She'd decided to start smoking after some of her friends did, and she'd thought they looked sophisticated, and they said they enjoyed it.

But she'd come to regret that she'd ever started in recent years, because she'd developed emphysema because of it. It was scary. She couldn't do much that was energetic any more, because even walking upstairs, or even a walk down the road, left her breathless, wondering if she'd ever get where she wanted to go, or whether she'd collapse before she got there because she just couldn't get enough breath. It happened several times a day, and it still frightened her when it happened.

She said she'd love to tell tobacco bosses all about it.

The film crew contacted the heads of tobacco firms, but they refused to speak to them. But several bosses lower down in the companies agreed to. They weren't responsible for making the companies' policies, but the film crew still thought it would make good thought-provoking television, and that the people who ran the companies still might watch and be influenced by the stories of the three people who were going to talk to the bosses who'd agreed to be interviewed with Becky.

So they made appointments to meet with them.

It was a sunny day when Becky and the group went to talk to the first tobacco boss who'd agreed to speak to them. He'd invited them to his home, a big place with a swimming pool in the garden. He thought the interview would be more private there, so it wouldn't be as embarrassing if they asked him awkward questions as it would be if he was asked them at work where the conversation was more likely to be overheard. He thought such things while knowing full well that he might be on television in front of millions. But still, he thought it would be good not to be visited at work by a film crew who'd be seen by people from his work who'd be bound to wonder what was going on.

He offered everyone refreshments, which they gladly accepted. Then the interview began.

Becky thanked him for agreeing to talk with them. She reminded him she wanted to ask him some questions about whether he thought it was fair of tobacco companies to export cigarettes to Africa, specially targeted at children, and she introduced the people who were going to tell him how smoking had affected their lives, Granny Emily, and the children, Solomon and Blessing, saying that in case the tobacco boss didn't know much about how smoking could affect people's lives, they could give examples.

Then she told Blessing to tell her story. Blessing was a bit nervous, but she told the tobacco boss all about how her older brother had become addicted to smoking, and how it had become a problem when their dad had an accident and couldn't work any more, so the children in the family had had to give up school because schooling wasn't free in her country so her dad had had to pay, and they'd all sometimes gone hungry because though her brother got a job to try and make up for their dad's loss of earnings, he didn't get much money, and spent quite a bit of what he did get on cigarettes instead of food for the family, because though he tried to give up smoking, he couldn't.

Blessing told the tobacco boss about how she'd had to give up school herself to work to support the family, getting a job bashing rocks to bits to help make gravel and powder to line rich people's swimming pools and things. She told him of how she was really tired when she finished her work every day, and how it was dangerous - the children and adults who worked there all breathed in a lot of dust, and some were beginning to find it harder to breathe all the time, and they thought that might be the reason. Also, slivers of rock would sometimes fly up when they smashed the rocks with hammers and things. She'd been cut in the face a few times, and worried that one day a sliver might fly up and hit her in the eye, causing permanent damage. Also, she'd accidentally bashed fingers hard with the hammer she used a few times. She was lucky none of them had broken, though they'd been bruised and had really hurt.

She said she'd like a different job, but though lots of children worked to help their families, there wasn't much variety of work for children in the city where she lived. There were a few other options. She could have worked scavenging things from rubbish tips all day that might have had salvageable metal or other material on them that could be sold as scrap. But lots of children did that already, and she didn't want any kids to think she was muscling in on their patch of the rubbish dump or anything. Besides, it was hardly safer than breaking rocks; there were toxic chemicals there and sharp things like broken glass, and some things that were infected with disease, like old bandages. A lot of care had to be taken. So she'd stuck with the work she had.

The tobacco boss was moved by her story.

Then Becky asked Blessing's grandmother to talk about how Blessing's brother's smoking habit had affected the family. The boss was visibly embarrassed, and even looked a bit upset when she'd finished.

Then Becky asked him, "Do you accept that smoking and the policies of your company are partly responsible for what happened to this family?"

He didn't want to have to admit to that. He said, "Possibly, but so many things can go wrong in Africa that it would be difficult to say that smoking was any more to blame than anything else."

Becky felt irritated, though she knew it would ruin the meeting if they got into an argument and he just tried to defend his company, and stopped thinking hard about what was being said to him. She wanted to challenge him though, so she said, "Since you know a lot of bad things happen in Africa, and in fact all over the world, how come you didn't go into a career where you'd actually be helping to make the world a better place? Instead you went into a career where you're helping to produce something that harms a lot of people in the end.

"I mean, just think: You could have done something heroic like being a fireman helping to put out fires, or a lifeboatman rescuing people from the sea. Or you could have helped make the world a better place in other ways; lots and lots of people do jobs where they help make the world a better place. Just think of people who mend things in people's houses, or build new houses for people, or help produce food, or help make things like cars and computers and all kinds of other things, so people can have easier lives and enjoy them more. All the people who do things like that can be proud when they retire that they spent their lives helping to make life better for other people.

"Think of the people who've been working to make medical breakthroughs over the past 60 years! So much has been achieved to make people's lives better! You could have been working to help them. But instead you've been working to make a product that harms people! Think of all the things that make your own life better and more enjoyable! You might well take a lot of those things for granted, but lots of people are working to make them! Think of soap manufacturers, companies that make clothes, furniture and the sheets on your bed! I'm not saying they do those things out of the goodness of their hearts, but at least they're working to make the lives of the people who buy them better.

"Think of all the foods you like, the music you enjoy, and the things you like doing in your spare time. Imagine your life without computers and radios and televisions! Imagine your life without the foods you like best! Imagine it without washing machines and cookers and fridges! People have to make those things, all people who spend their lives doing things that improve living standards for people all around them, and sometimes all over the world. Think of the people who invented so many useful things that make our lives easier or more entertaining! Those people can and could be proud of themselves when they retired, knowing a lot of people's lives have been improved because of them.

"But when you retire, how will you feel, knowing that you spent years and years and years working to help make something that eventually kills people instead, and causes a lot of other problems in the process?

"I'm not saying I think you probably don't do anything good in life; I mean, for all I know, you might give a lot to charity, or you might do nice things for your children at weekends. But just think of people working week after week to make life better for people, when you're spending so much time helping to sell things that harm people!

"If you've got a cleaner, she'll be doing a lot more to make the world a better place than you are, and a lot less that makes it a worse one; she'll be making things nice for you week after week, and when she retires, she'll be able to be proud that she made things nice for people for a long time, so she improved their lives. But when you're on your deathbed, will you be able to look back with pride because you sold so many cigarettes? Isn't it possible that you'll finally start thinking about what really matters in life, and start to wish you hadn't spent so long helping to produce things that are harming others?"

Becky was worried the boss would get angry and the conversation would turn into an argument, and there would end up not being time for the others to tell their stories. So without waiting for him to reply, she asked Solomon to tell his.

He did, all about how much he'd have loved the opportunity to have played football for a professional team, and how much the money he earned would have helped his family if he'd been successful. His grandmother explained how much that would have helped, even with just being able to afford decent food, and to send any of the children who were still growing up to schools that were actually good, in a country where people weren't helped along by financial benefits, free schooling, free medical treatment, and things like that. The government just didn't provide such things.

The tobacco boss was fidgeting and looked uncomfortable. Becky asked him, "Do you accept that smoking played a part in these children's problems?"

He seemed to think it was his duty to defend his company. He fidgeted some more, and then said, "Their stories are very sad. But it has to be remembered that people will always have a choice about whether to smoke. A responsible person will always weigh up whether they can afford it before they start, and it will always be possible for anyone who really wants to give up to do so; smoking isn't like a hard drug such as heroin, where people really do get terrible withdrawal symptoms when they try to give up, such as vomiting, stomach cramps, muscle aches and diarrhoea. People don't get any of that when they're giving up smoking."

Becky started worrying that the entire trip to Africa and all the arrangements that had been made would be in vain, since it seemed nothing that was said was going to have any effect on the boss's attitude. But she decided to carry on trying.

She said, "But people do get strong cravings when they try to give up smoking, don't they. I've heard they can be so strong they make people really stressed, and that's what puts them off giving up. Solomon, tell the boss how you felt when you were trying to give up smoking."

Solomon told the boss about how he'd felt stressed and angry, and couldn't concentrate on his schoolwork. He said he'd also felt tired and a bit dizzy, though he'd found it hard to sleep at night. He'd also got headaches and a feeling of tightness in the chest. And that was besides the strong cravings to smoke he'd had. He'd known that if only he could give up smoking, he'd have been better off, but he was already feeling a bit miserable because some of his family members were ill and dying; he'd had no one to reassure him that the cravings and other symptoms wouldn't last long, and he'd felt as if he just couldn't face having to put up with them on and on for who knows how long. After all, he was only a young boy.

Becky thought she could see tears in the eyes of the boss. But she didn't want to get too optimistic too soon.

She asked Solomon why he'd chosen to start smoking in the first place, instead of being put off by the cost.

Solomon said he'd been full of optimism that he'd be able to make money with the football team, thinking that then he'd be able to smoke all he wanted. He knew he should have known better, but he'd had friends who said smoking made them feel good, and he really wanted to feel better, and he'd seen adverts made by the cigarette companies that gave the impression that smoking was something that cool sporting people did, and he'd wanted to be like them. No one had told him it might be difficult to give up cigarettes, or that they caused health problems in the end.

Becky said she could understand how people might not make the most sensible decisions when deciding to smoke, since it seemed that even grown-ups made bad decisions they regretted; she'd even heard someone who must have been about 75 years old say that something had taught her a lesson and she'd never do it again, just a few days before. Becky thought that if people could still be learning lessons about life when they were as old as that, either it meant they'd learned them before but then forgotten they had, or it meant people were doomed to have to keep making new kinds of mistakes and having to learn from them all their lives. Or perhaps it was a mixture of the two. Unless it was just the old woman who learned lessons at her age, and that it had been one of the first lessons she'd ever had to learn since she'd grown up. But Becky had a horrible suspicion that it was everyone who had to learn lessons, and that they might have to learn a lot. She cringed at the thought that she might be having to do that herself all her life.

But she knew she couldn't sit and think it over for long just then, because she was in the middle of talking to people. So the interview continued.

Becky decided it was time Granny Emily told the boss her story. First though, she thought it might be a good idea for Granny Emily to show the boss what effects smoking had had on her, so she asked her if she'd mind taking a walk around the garden, so the boss could tell how badly her lung disease affected her.

Granny Emily got up and walked partway around it and back; and even then, she was gasping for breath. She sat down to recover.

When she had, she told the tobacco boss that she'd started smoking fifty years before, when little was known about the health risks, and the tobacco companies were doing their best to deny there was a problem. She'd seen adverts making young women who smoked look sophisticated, that gave the impression that smoking could make women more attractive to nice young men. And she had friends who smoked, who gave the impression it was fun. But she said if she'd known she'd end up with severe health problems, she'd never have started, because every day she had times where she struggled for breath and got scared she might die right there and then. She sometimes had to pay people to help with her housework and do her shopping, when her children weren't available to help, because even things she wouldn't have thought of as energetic a decade before left her gasping for breath.

Becky asked the tobacco boss whether he felt sympathetic towards Emily. He said he did. But then Becky asked him if he could justify the sale of tobacco when it caused such problems, and he said again that people always had the choice of smoking it. Becky reminded him that when Granny Emily and the children had started smoking, they hadn't known it was harmful. She asked him if he thought it was fair that the tobacco companies were trying to keep the harm it could do secret in the developing world, so as not to put people off buying cigarettes.

He looked shifty, and said he didn't believe that was going on. Then he said that at least Emily must have known about the risks for years and years, and yet she still hadn't given up, though she must have had plenty of opportunity to.

Becky asked Emily to explain why she hadn't given up in all that time.

Emily said she'd tried a few times, but she'd never been able to. She said that when she was a lot younger, she'd stopped smoking for weeks, but she'd been stressed and grumpy and had snapped at the children. She'd felt guilty about that, and hadn't thought she was being fair. Then when people smoked around her, she'd had such a temptation to smoke that she'd started again. She said there had been other times when she'd tried to give up, but she'd had terrible cravings, and found it difficult to concentrate on her work. So she'd always given in to the temptation to start smoking again. She said that apart from that, she hadn't taken the risks all that seriously when she was younger, partly because she'd known a couple of people who were in their nineties and had smoked a lot for years, besides drinking a small glass of whisky every day, and yet they were still in fairly good health. So it had seemed to her that the risks might be quite low, and that something else might get her before the cigarettes ever did.

Becky asked the tobacco boss how he'd feel if his own mother or another member of his family had been smoking for years and then got serious health problems.

He was silent while he thought for a minute. Then he sidestepped the question, saying, "I think responsible smoking's as important as responsible drinking. I would hope any members of my family who smoked would be responsible about it."

Becky asked, "And just what is responsible smoking? When you can even get health problems from second-hand smoke - from just being around smokers a lot, even if you never smoke yourself, how can you be sure there is a safe limit, and that you're guaranteed not to get health problems if you just make sure you never smoke more than whatever it is? And if there is a safe limit, why doesn't it say what it is on labels on packs of cigarettes?"

The boss didn't really answer the questions, but said, "Well, certainly if you don't smoke much, you're going to be much less at risk of getting health problems than you will be if you smoke like a chimney."

Becky said, "It's interesting that you admit that smoking causes health problems, because tobacco companies have tried to keep that hushed up in the past, haven't they. How do you feel about that? I even heard that they didn't want to make safer cigarettes for ages, because advertising them as safer would mean admitting by implication that the ones sold in the past weren't so safe, so people who'd developed diseases caused by years of smoking would have had more grounds to take tobacco companies to court, because they would know they couldn't claim they didn't know about the health risks of smoking, which they might have tried to do before. Would you have supported the policy of not making safer cigarettes in case that happened?"

The boss looked uncomfortable and said, "Well, let's just be thankful that now safer products are being made."

Becky said, "But your company still sells a lot of the old-style cigarettes, doesn't it. Have you ever wanted to stop them?"

The boss looked as if the colour was draining from his face, and he seemed to be wringing his hands a bit, as if he was growing increasingly uncomfortable. He said, "Um, no; but I think everybody's becoming more health-conscious over time."

Becky asked, "Does that mean you'll campaign for your company to make safer cigarettes from now on?"

"I can't make any promises," said the boss.

Becky asked, "How would you feel if your children started smoking? Would you try to persuade them to stop?"

The tobacco boss was fidgeting and looking embarrassed again. He said, "It would depend on how much they smoked. Only smoking in moderation cuts down the risks of developing smoking-related diseases."

"But there wouldn't be any risks at all if they didn't smoke," said Becky, "apart from if they kept having to inhale second-hand smoke. That's another thing that isn't fair. Do you think it's acceptable that people's health can be damaged by cigarettes even when they don't smoke themselves?"

The boss didn't answer the question. Instead he said, "We have brought out a range of safer cigarettes recently."

Then it sounded to Becky as if he was praising their benefits as if to advertise them, though that might not really have been his intention; he was probably just defending his company.

Becky said, "Never mind the new ones that are at least a bit less risky. You admit that some of the ones you've been selling over the years haven't been safe. What about the ones you sell in Africa? Are they the safer kind?"

"Not all of them," admitted the boss.

Blessing and Solomon looked disapprovingly at him.

Becky asked him, "How would you feel if one of your family had been smoking for years and then got severe health problems like cancer or heart disease, or some lung disease like Granny Emily's got, and then someone told them it was their fault because they could have given up smoking if they'd wanted to?"

"I'd be angry with them," said the tobacco boss thoughtfully.

Becky said, "You can understand it then when other people's families are upset with people who say that the health problems of their loved ones are their own fault because they could have given up smoking?"

"Yes, I understand," said the tobacco boss.

It was time for the end of the interview. The head of the film crew said they ought to begin to think about going. Becky thanked the tobacco boss for speaking to them. He was relieved the meeting was over. He offered them another drink, which they accepted. It seemed surprisingly kind of him to do that, given all the things Becky had said to him. Then they packed up and went away.

They had similar talks with bosses from several more tobacco companies.

The documentary about cigarettes being sold to children in the developing world was made and put on television. Millions watched it. There were highlights from some of Becky's talks with tobacco bosses in it. Her family were proud of her, and she got good write-ups in the papers. There was even talk of her becoming a regular children's reporter on television documentaries.

The tobacco companies selling cigarettes in Africa and other parts of the developing world didn't change their ways, but all the tobacco bosses Becky and the others had spoken to left their companies and got jobs doing completely different things. When Becky wrote to them a few months after she'd spoken to them, some said they'd been moved by what everyone had said when they were interviewed, and had had a serious think about what they'd been doing and the harm tobacco could do after their talk, and they'd decided to change their ways.

Becky was pleased.